LDF government inert on private forest acquisition

Thiruvananthapuram: Nearly 400 hectares of private forest, a good chunk of them in core forest areas, have not been acquired although proposals to notify these areas as ecologically fragile lands are with the Custodian of Forests since 2008. Worse, it has been over 15 years since the Ecologically Fragile Lands Act has been passed but the Forest Department has not acquired even a single private forest by paying the requisite compensation. This non-implementation of the EFL Act, which had been pointed out by even a CAG report, has emboldened private planters inside national parks and protected reserves to harm the forest with impunity.

KP Estate, for instance, which lies inside Silent Valley National Park, cultivates various crops without paying attention to the surrounding bio-diversity.  Five diesel pumps (16 HP), chemical fertilizers and vehicles are being used inside the forest. “The River Kunthi runs through the private estate and the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides inside the estate had caused widespread water and soil pollution,” Sahadevan Sasthrikal, an environmentalist, said.

Another example of disastrous practices is Downton Estate, Pachakkanam, a private cardamom estate spread over 208 hectares inside Periyar Tiger Reserve.  “The entire cultivation in the estate was solely dependent on the use of chemical fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides,” a top Forest official said. “These chemicals, in turn, have contaminated Kullarthodu – a stream flowing through the estate,” he said. What’s more, the owners also operated a homestay. The use of forest for non-forest purpose is a violation of Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

Further north, a patch of 50 hectares of land within the new Amarambalam Reserve under the Padukka Forest Station, Karulayi Range Forest Office of Nilambur South Division, has obstructed the elephant corridor. The land was being used by its owners for cultivation, buildings have also been constructed. And the owners’ cattle graze in the surrounding reserve forest. Grazing of cattle inside reserve forest adversely affects wildlife ecology.